In Defense of Mr Fred Charles Krueger
by James Austin Valiant
Summary: Freddy Krueger's day in court makes a rough time and hard decisions for his lawyer...


_**Disclaimer: **I do not own Freddy Krueger or anything in relation to the Nightmare on Elm St. series. This story is written for my own enjoyment and no profit is being made on it. Sometimes, when I fall asleep at night, I have nightmares of a man with razor fingers chasing me in a boiler room…_

**In Defense of  
Mr. Fred Charles Kruger  
By: James Austin Valiant**

"But Mr. Kobashi-san!"

I added the –san in at the end of his last name, a sign of respect for the Japanese. But Ken Kobashi of Kobashi & Shojinami, Attorneys At Law, would not hear it. He had told me once, and he had told me one thousand times. No matter what, I would have to defend…him. That monster of a man was a despicable piece of human waste. The man's name was Freddy Krueger, better known as the infamous Springwood Slasher. The creep had admitted to me his slaughter of innocent children, and of his wife. I, John Arjuna, was perplexed. Do I defend this scumbag, try and get him off the hook? Or make sure he gets convicted and goes to jail? To whom did I belong: Kobashi and my duty as a lawyer, or Kruger's victims' families and my duty for the justice system?

I left the office angrily and stormed into the conference room, where Kruger sat, his hands shackled behind his back. His grin was eerie, and possessed an evil that was not of this world. Picking up the manila folder that held Kruger's weighty file, I flipped through it. His illustrious career had started when he'd killed a neighborhood dog that had killed his daughter's own mutt. "It was defense," he had claimed, "that dog was attacking my daughter's. I had to kill it, or else it would've killed my dog."

The next entry was a domestic disturbance call. His wife, Loretta, had called to report that he was hitting her. She had had noticeable bruises, but Freddy claimed she was hitting herself, that she was a masochist. For some odd reason, the cops believed him and let them be. Until, that is, Freddy killed Loretta. His daughter, Katherine, had witnessed the entire debacle and was taken away from her father and placed in a foster home. Kruger escaped custody of the police and hid out in his old place of work, a factory, and began his reign as the Springwood Slasher, murdering the children of the people of Springwood. Since his own daughter was taken, he would take everyone else's children away.

Luckily, one of the children managed to escape the Slasher's clutches and led the police to his lair. They arrested Kruger, and now it was up to me to defend the maniac in court. Krueger, or Freddy as he preferred to be called, admitted to me he murdered all those children. But I mentioned that. Those children, the one who went missing…well, they would stay missing forever. What was I to do?

"Mr. Arjuna?" His raspy voice reached my ears, and I turned to look at him. "You know what happened, John, "he continued, using my first name, "and the fact is I am guilty. So why don't we just do it like this; let's go into that courtroom and you do your job, I'll do mine and whatever happens, happens. Capeesh?"

"All right, Krueger." I nodded in agreement.

The trial occurred the next day. As a believer in the reincarnation of the soul, I knew the children that Freddy had taken were not truly dead; they were just being reborn. I did the best job I could; doing exactly what Mr. Kobashi had instructed me to do when I went to him for advice. I fought as hard as I could on the behalf of Mr. Fred C. Krueger, to keep my loyalty to my duty. Kobashi had said that I had to look at the 'big picture' and how this event would fit into the grand scheme of things. I saw life as a cyclical whole. I sat and awaited the verdict on my client.

"Whatever happens happens." Kruger had said it to me yesterday, and the phrase stuck with me. I couldn't think of the consequences of this action as to how they would relate to the world right now. I had to use my intuitive knowledge; in the end, as Kruger said, what that would come, would come. That's simply the way it was, the way Kruger had said it, and the way Krisha had related it as well.

As the judge came into the courtroom to exact the verdict, I eyed the manila folder in front of me again. Nonchalantly picking it up, I flipped through the more recent part, as current as a few weeks ago, when a search warrant had been issued for the arrest of the Springwood Slasher. The bailiff beckoned us to rise, as the honorable judge had decided on Kruger's sentence. The Slasher cringed as I examined the warrant more closely. _Could it be? _ I thought. _ Could they really have looked over this miniscule detail?_

"Your Honor, before you begin," I started, interrupting the judge before he even got a word out, "I believe that this warrant for the arrest of the defendant is not, and never was, signed by the Police Commissioner." I handed it to the bailiff, who in turn brought it to the judge.

The judge swallowed as he read the warrant, then re-read it and double-checked it. He placed it down and spoke. "In accordance with the law, I can not sentence this man. On the account of the fact that the search warrant was not signed, therefore, not validated by this government, Fred Charles Kruger, you are free to go." Freddy cheered, the judge grimaced, and the people went wild. Freddy Krueger? Free? Because someone had forgotten to authorize the search warrant? I was relieved, and saw Fred slipping out with his police accompaniment. He smiled a cold, dark smile and left. I was half-scared, half-nervous. But I had done what I had to do.

Whatever happened after that, happened.


End file.
